How About "No?"
- Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts asked the state of Illinois for $200 million dollars Thursday to help renovate Wrigley Field and Friday he joined the Mully & Hanley Show on 670 The Score to further explain his proposal.
One problem: Ricketts hasn’t explained the plan to the governor, who said he’s not too pleased about that.
“They haven’t proposed it to me,” Gov. Pat Quinn told Newsradio 780′s Craig Dellimore, during a taping of “At Issue. “I read about in the paper like everyone else.”
The bottom line: Ricketts wants to start renovations on Wrigley Field immediately and he wants to take the money Cubs fans are already spending and reinvest it into saving the ballpark.
Have the Cubs stopped filling seats in Wrigley? We didn't think so. Floating municipal bonds in this sort of atmosphere doesn't seem like a good idea, at least from our standpoint.
Labels: we got nothing
posted by SCC at 12:01 AM
62 Comments:
Veiled threat to boogie out. Anyone got their old T-shirt: Let there be lights- In Schaumburg?
ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! Wrigley field is just fine. Every game is sold out and after every game there is a winner, including the cubs owner. Illinois can not afford it. Remember, Illinois is broke. The 2nd worst state in the nation next to California due to democratic control for way toooooo long.
If you don't give us tax payer money then we won't continue to have sellout crowds with our crappy team. Eventually Cub fans will figure out this place is a dump and falling apart. Every year is a new renovation and addition. Why should we, as an owners of the business, have to pay for our own repairs? That's crazy. We can't keep raising ticket prices on the yuppies. They are on to us. We had no idea the shape this place was in when we bought it. We thought that was a typo when it said made in 1914. Hell, WWI just started then. Can you believe that?
Signed,
The Ricketts
Sounds suspiciously like the Ricketts family wants to turn Wrigleyville into their own version of DisneyCubPark and they want to do with taxpayer cash.
And it sounds like that was the plan all along.
The curse on the Cubbies isn't the goat, the black cat, Steve Bartman or any other creature (living or dead). The curse is Wrigley Field itself. When they finally wreck that piss-stenched park in another 20 years (amid much protest from Cub fans), the Cubs will win their first World Series in 122 years the very first season in their new ballpark. Count on it.
I agree. Let the rich Ricketts pay for Wrigley Field themselves!
Start by asking the team for some wins
I almost puked when I read this. Those greedy bastards spent almost $850 million on a loosing team and now they want to use our tax money to renovate that pit? Are you fucking kidding me!!
Call Holmes on Homes. He will take it down to the studs and re-build.
Fuck the Rickett's and that Toyota eyesore in left field.
is this ricketts guy living under a rock---- the state is hundreds of millions of dollars in arrears for funding of it's public schools--- why would the state want to give the best little whorehouse in illinois 300 million when they can't even afford to fully fund their financial obligations to the public school system---
per the news tonight, Senate President John Cullerton has promised the measure will be brought up to the state house this week for a vote. Kinda quick isn't it?
Let the fuckin' Ricketts family build another park in some other state and get them the fuck out of here. & they can take all the nasty Cub fans with them .
just checked cbssports.com, the average baseball salary is almost 3.3 million a year, why don't the owners propose that the players reinvest their money into stadium improvements and/or new stadiums. The sox park deal is a joke as is the united ct and soldier field.
I agree. It should be that way across the board.
How about if the White Sox return their welfare?
How many millions have they pocketed? How do you think they financed their renovations and the whole stadium?
Fuck the Cubs. Bull doze that shithole and sell the land to benefit the Howard Brown Clinic!
dear gov, i want to renovate my house can you spare 300k? thought so... tell this tool to add a buck or 2 to ticket prices and explain why to fans!
Tax payer funds for a loosing team? A museum for 103 years of lossing seasons? A remodeled ball park for suburban yuppies? Have a winning season first and maybe we can discuss the issue.
Second ! No.
Dear Ricketts family: Use your own damn money or take out a loan like everyone else does.
I personally don't give a crap about Wrigley Field. I went there once twenty years ago, and haven't been back since. If you need a ball park, work something out with the White Sox.
Our dumb-ass guv will probably go for it...what the hell, it's only OUR money!
My wife and our three kids used to go see Cubs games a few times a year. For the past few years just once a year, The prices are just too high. Every game is SRO. Spend some of your money Ricketts, not the taxpayers' money.
As a life long Cub's fan I have to say "HELL NO" to this idea!
It's no secret this one of the most profitable clubs in baseball history. No taxpayer money should be used on ANY sporting venue, in my opinion.
NO WAY!!!!! YOU HAVE MONEY TO BUY THE CUBS, IT'S A PRIVATELY OWNED TEAM PAY FOR YOUR OWN BUILDING! F/U Ricketts family! Burn in hell you jag-offs, pay for your stadium, our tax dollars are wasted on enough crap! Just keep raising the prices of your tickets, have a few more concerts and that should cover the bill. Ask the state to pay for it, hard working citizens, what is Illinois unemployment rate again? And this guy has the nerve to ask with a smile for tax payers to put money into that shit hole? U SIR ARE A JAG-OFF!
Who paid for Soldiers Field?
I'm just sayn...
Let them move who cares.
Fuck these Ricketts people. As a diehard Cubs fan, I am outraged that these rich pricks have the nerve to ask for taxpayer funded repairs. My guess is that they had a very healthy cash reserve after buying one of the highest valued sports teams in all of team sports. That's like buying the most dilapidated house in Kenilworth and asking the local government to pay for upgrades and repairs just to keep you there. Absolutely assinine!
Ricketts you and your entire family can kiss $300,000,000.00 of my ASS!
Your the dumb ass that got ripped off in the first place buying that loser team and building that should be condemned, and now you want people who work for a living to bail you out?
Go to hell!!!!! PEOPLE IN ILLINOIS ARE BROKE
leave it to a BILLIONAIRE to cry for free money.
what a fucking joke....
Why don't you move the Cubs out of the city and do the right thing. Bring jobs and revenue to the suburbs and a county that works. Cook County is pure dis-function at it's best, just watch the news, now little Todd is not playing nice on the way out, who is he really hurting, US TAX PAYERS!
"Take your loser team and move you broke ass to the burbs!"
How do I get a hold of a state representative so I can ask them to pay for my business with tax payer dollars?
Senior Citizens can not even get a CLOA adjustment and yet you want our money for a privately owned team/business?
Schools and Hospitals closing but we should pay for the Rickett's dream team. Screw health care and education, keep our citizens of Illinois uneducated and sick so you can have a stadium? Amazing....
Awww! Hell NO!!! Not on my dime....
You got to be kidding me right?! This has got to be the most insane thing I have ever heard!!
The place is a piss filled piece of crumbling crap!!
I went there many years ago and it was one of the worst experiences!!
The place was sro. Damp, dirty, cold, not very friendly!
I wouldn't go back there again, not for free or to even to throw out the first pitch!
A bunch of drunk northsiders who don't know how to behave!
Picket the Rickets!!
Think about it. They are going NO PLACE. The north side of this crap town is the only place they can find morons who support 102 yrs of losses. It's not a baseball. team it's a tourist attraction.
P.S. 103 on the way.
we're talking bathrooms, toyota signs more seats, stadium renovation, and not one word about players.
There is no way in hell that taxpayer money should be used to build or renovate a privately owned stadium, or a public one for that matter. Sox Park and Soldier Field were huge expenses to the taxpayer with very little return. Doing the same for Wrigley would be throwing good money after bad. Unfortuneately it is becoming common all over the country.
they did the same thing in AZ, they strong-armed the city of Mesa for new stadium money. threatened to leave and Mesa caved. where are we going to get the money from?
Yep, the guv just might do it- using more of our (my) pension funds as a piggy bank. Would that make us part owners?
Cuck the Fubs. Let Ricketts move this pathetic bunch of losers to his home town of Omaha.
The Ricketts family overpaid for the Cubs, plain and simple.
If they were such shrewd business people, as they've been portrayed, that team shouldn't have cost them more than $600-700 million, tops. Even at that price the Cubs are overvalued.
And they wouldn't have allowed Zell to keep a 5% stake in the club.
I say the Ricketts should do what private business owners have to do whenever they want to make capital improvements-finance it themselves.
From cub fan:
Pay for it yourself Mr. Ricketts. We don't finance stores for Macy's we don't want to pay for your ballpark. If I decide to go to a game and some of that money goes for the renovations, then that's my decision. You bought a business. Pay for it yourself, or raise the tickets and take it from there.
That being said, I would ask the Cub bashers (Sox fans) on here to remember the way that the Cell was financed. We are all still paying for that. And Reinsdorf is lining his pockets off of what the taxpayers did for him. Remember? "Give us some help to build the place or we will move to Tampa or Sarasota or some city in Florida."
The legislature folded like a house of cards.
Anonymous said...
Dear Ricketts family: Use your own damn money or take out a loan like everyone else does.
I personally don't give a crap about Wrigley Field. I went there once twenty years ago, and haven't been back since. If you need a ball park, work something out with the White Sox.
11/13/2010 09:25:00 AM
----------------------------------
These same arguments were made before rebuilding Comiskey Park (or the Cell). I'm in favor of upgrading Wrigley even though I haven't been there in years and am a White Sox fan. Please don't bring the goat or curse to the South Side.
FUCKING LEECHES. Corporate America is the biggest leech on American taxpayers and society. I know we bitch about link cards, welfare moms, etc... But Corporate America is the worst offender. The connected corporations get too much from us. We need to end welfare for corporations and also individuals.
The Cubs have made multi millionaires out of tavern owners in the area. how about a Cubs tax on them?
And someone out to bring a consumer fraud case against the Cubs organization. They claim to play Major League Baseball over there and from what I have seen, they most certainly do not.
And what about the outside special employment we were supposed to get three years ago working baseball games (Sox and the AA team on the north side), football, basketball etc? It might be over three years ago. Mark Donahue himself announced it at an FOP meeting. So far, nothing.
Screw the Cubs..the last Cubs game I attended was about 1980 or 1981. I don't feel like I've missed much.
NO.
Screw Wrigley Field.
I sometimes made the mistake of making a bookstore run down Clark Street on a game night -- the number of drunken, vicious, smart-assed, twentysomething Cubs fans who'd harass a passer-by for no reason at all convinced me that the "friendly confines" -- and area several blocks around -- are no place for civilized people.
Tear it down and build a giant urinal in its place; that's what the area seems to need the most. Not one taxpayer penny.
Relocate the God-damned thing to Robbins or Phoenix.
What a bunch of losers. Move them out of state who gives a shit !!!
Does that mean the tax paying citizens of Illinois will be co-owners?
hey...that DUMP on the south side was paid for with tax dollars and it had to be half demolished to make it a half shit stadium! Dont hate hillbillies!
A bunch of drunk northsiders who don't know how to behave!
Picket the Rickets!!
11/13/2010 12:14:00 PM
Lets be fair.
Drunk fucks from ALL Sides of the State go there. And all 23rd does is stand around.
If these people pull this shit off and the taxpayers have another nut to guarantee, they should not be called the Rickets family. They should in the future be coined the "Rackets" family because to dump the costs of "their" investment on the taxpayer would be one fine racket indeed.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
The Cubs have made multi millionaires out of tavern owners in the area. how about a Cubs tax on them?
And someone out to bring a consumer fraud case against the Cubs organization. They claim to play Major League Baseball over there and from what I have seen, they most certainly do not.
And what about the outside special employment we were supposed to get three years ago working baseball games (Sox and the AA team on the north side), football, basketball etc? It might be over three years ago. Mark Donahue himself announced it at an FOP meeting. So far, nothing.
11/13/2010 05:36:00 PM
the special that is true,what happened? Maybe daleys former detail guys the same guys bidding to run McCormick place are getting more no bid huge contracts? Look at SMG Security management group a whose who of Daley pals!
Yea the locker rooms are a disgrace. What a fucking joke. What did Soriano, Ramirez and Zambrano earn last year? As they spend those fortunes back in their native countries they must laugh their balls off over what true suckers Americans are. Now a billionaire owner strolls in and instead of saying he's got to rid his team of these grossly overpaid prima donnas; he wants the overburdened taxpayer to pitch in for the good of the neighborhood. This is as crazy as thinking that you could bring in an outsider with no police experience and run the second largest police department in America.
Remeber that the owners rejected Mark Cuban's offer of 1.1 billion for the loveable losers. 200 million more than the ricketts family offered. So they ok the sale to a wealthy family that doesn't have the liquid cash. The Ricketts family..HILARIOUS
Call Quicken like the rest of us peasants.. Rates are 4.10% today. Or better yet, call Blago and he can use the batphone to get in touch with rezko or giannoulis..
Another wealthy family trying to screw the taxpayers. AGAIN!
Anonymous said...
Remeber that the owners rejected Mark Cuban's offer of 1.1 billion for the loveable losers. 200 million more than the ricketts family offered. So they ok the sale to a wealthy family that doesn't have the liquid cash. The Ricketts family..HILARIOUS
Call Quicken like the rest of us peasants.. Rates are 4.10% today. Or better yet, call Blago and he can use the batphone to get in touch with rezko or giannoulis..
Another wealthy family trying to screw the taxpayers. AGAIN!
11/14/2010 01:25:00 AM
This is the Chicago Cubs version of a TIF. The Ricketts Family are using the exact same sleight of hand that Daley has done for years to siphon off tax money for purposes other than what was originally intended. Just not as slickly. The timing was a bit off but the fix was already in with Cullerton so Ricketts had to go public with it.
Watch for Mike Madigan's public statement(s) on this for a true gauge on whether it might happen or not. This did not just happen out of the blue.
This is backroom dealmaking in Chicago's finest tradition.
Watch also for a Ben Joravsky article in The Reader soon. A TIF by any other name is still a TIF and right up Ben's alley.
$300 million spent from tax money is $300 million the Cubs don't have to spend and $300 million in the Ricketts Family pocket.
Anonymous said...
NO.
Screw Wrigley Field.
I sometimes made the mistake of making a bookstore run down Clark Street on a game night -- the number of drunken, vicious, smart-assed, twentysomething Cubs fans who'd harass a passer-by for no reason at all convinced me that the "friendly confines" -- and area several blocks around -- are no place for civilized people.
Tear it down and build a giant urinal in its place; that's what the area seems to need the most. Not one taxpayer penny.
11/13/2010 06:40:00 PM
It already is a giant urinal.
I thing that financing plan is brilliant but I would rather the $300 million go directly into some of the City of Chicago's underfunded pension plans instead.
We should not divert one cent of tax money until all City pension plans are funded at or near 90%
Relocate the God-damned thing to Robbins or Phoenix.
11/13/2010 06:41:00 PM
don't send that dump out here we got standards, build it in Gary they can use the $$$
The Gary Cubs...I LIKE IT I LIKE IT !!!!
...all the 23rd does is stand around
actually, thats special events that is just standing around, we're just driving around!
just curious how much did reinsdorf get for us cellular? Oh forget it thats daleys spot. I get it now. Im not for taxpayer money funding it but the fact is wrigley does a lot more for chicagos economy that us cellular or the white sox could ever dream of
I'm not completely in love with this idea either, however, the Chicago White Sox organization back in the 90's, when they hadn't won a World Series in 80 plus years, pulled the same damn thing. They threatened to move to Tampa, remember. The state came through eventually and helped finance that eyesore of a studium which had to be renovated a few years later, I'm sure at tax payers expense once again. I am 100% sure that the businesses that surround Wrigley are a larger tax base than the White Sox organization and the surrounding businesses that benefit from the White Sox. I would also guess that if the State doesn't poney up for these renovations it would lose a hell of a lot more than 300 million in tax revenue in the long haul. Think about all the people that those businesses employ, it's got to be in the thousands. I'm just saying if it was good enough for a failure of a francise like the White Sox why shouldn't a successful organization like the Cubs be deserving of the aid, at least with the Cubs those tax dollars will continue to roll in. Like the team or not.
You think this one's cray?
Did you see what our aldercreatures did last week? Voting for a new $100M "affordable housing" plan?
But it's OK, because they're using magic TIF money that doesn't come from taxpayers, but materializes out of thin air without costing anyone a penny!
Aren't they smart?
Socialism for the rich & Capitalism for the rest of us.
Ricketts is trying to put over an OPM (Other Peoples Money) "hoodooo" on us.
FU Ricketts!
You want to renovate your private property? Sell 49% of the shares of The Flubs on an Ebay auction. You pick the Reserve.
Out of an annual attendence of 3 million you should be able to find 41,000 investors to put up $10,000 (that's $410 million) to own a piece of yellow stained history.
Do your renovation the old fashioned way!!
Any politician that pushes this public financing i idea these days ought to be booted from office and tarred and feathered!
Buck Naked
(Not a Cop)
Post a Comment
<< Home